The present invention relates to an interferometric system for the detection and location of reflecting faults in light-guiding structures.
The term "light-guiding structures" is understood to mean optical waveguides, such as e.g. optical fibers, optical couplers and even lasers.
The present invention more particularly applies to the field of optical telecommunications and permits the location of weakly reflecting diopters in such optical guides with a high resolution.
The invention also makes it possible to measure the transmission characteristics of such optical guides, as well as the reflection coefficients of passive or active guiding structures.
An interferometric system for the detection and location of reflecting faults is already known from the document "High-spatial-resolution and high-sensitivity interferometric optical-time-domain reflectometer", Masaru Kobayashi, Juichi Noda, Kazumasa Takada and Henry F. Taylor, SPIE Conference, Orlando, Fla., Apr. 1-5, 1991, 1474-40.